Trying E6: need advise

[Shyftir]

Okay, I'm up next to DM in my gaming group. The plan is to try E6, our campaign inspiration is as such:

The heroes are employees of Ex-adventurer Brogan MacGuffin, who is founder and CEO of the (regionally) famous MacGuffin's Recovery Service.

The players will of course be chasing down and recovering items of various sorts. They will be starting at level 3 and there should be about 6 players. All but two of my players are very skilled both at role-play and mechanics the other two are newer players.


The advice I need is two-fold. What kind of challenges are most appropriate to an E6 campaign? and what other variants might I consider including in this game to increase the unique fun-ness.

[Dyllan]

One variant I'd suggest adding, or possibly incorporating as a feat, is unlimited cantrips. Any caster can cast any level 0 spell they know as often as they want. The only thing you need to change to avoid making this unbalancing, in my experience, is to change Cure Minor Wounds so that it doesn't actually heal (maybe rename it to Stabalize). It stabilizes someone who's below 0 HP, and stops any effects that could be stopped by magical healing, but doesn't actually heal any HP. Otherwise, after every battle, we just heal 1 HP a round until the party's at full.

Alternatively, you could make it a feat that requires caster level 6 to take, and add it to the E6 feat list. Either way, you need to change Cure Minor Wounds.

[doc225]

Why start at lev 3 if you are playing E6. I'm not knocking your decision, just curious. I just started a group at lvl, who are all experienced players.

seems like you are taking away some of the "growing stage" of E6, but again, I'm not knocking you, just wondering your motivation.

As far as advice, just make sure that you try not to use the "typical" adventures. throw something at them thet they haven't seen before.

[sonofzeal]

One variant I'd suggest adding, or possibly incorporating as a feat, is unlimited cantrips. Any caster can cast any level 0 spell they know as often as they want. The only thing you need to change to avoid making this unbalancing, in my experience, is to change Cure Minor Wounds so that it doesn't actually heal (maybe rename it to Stabalize). It stabilizes someone who's below 0 HP, and stops any effects that could be stopped by magical healing, but doesn't actually heal any HP. Otherwise, after every battle, we just heal 1 HP a round until the party's at full.

This is a really popular houserule, but also a really exploitable one, and entirely unnecessary. Seriously, if you like this, just take Reserve Feats (Complete Mage / Complete Champion). They get what I'm pretty sure you're looking for, are more balanced, and many fit just fine in E6.

[Viletta Vadim]

Really, there aren't many major, exploitable cantrips. Cure Minor Wound shouldn't restore HP under the infinite variant, and you might want to change Detect Magic to first-level. About all that's left of significance is Acid Splash, which isn't bad.

Though ultimately, with E6, it's an extremely flexible ruleset that can do a ton of different things depending on the variant. It really depends on exactly what you're going for.

[Calimehter]

One thing that I noticed as my own E6 campaign has progressed is that the "cap" on character levelling makes it tough for NPCs to match the characters. In normal d20, you can always tack a few levels onto a BBEG . . . in E6, you have feats. Feats are still cool and useful, but the "classic" BBEG vs. the party sort of fight will short and one-sided unless the bad guy has help.

In other words, that 6th level badass that can run circles around your characters now w/o a lot of support won't scale up as fast as the PCs will, and his method of fighting the PCs will have to change. Something to keep in mind when designing NPCs and plots around them.

[Rixx]

I'm running an E6 game soon, and preparing for it has been a blast. A good rule of thumb is that anything CR 1 to 8 or so is stuff you can throw at the players no matter what level they are - especially if you're starting at 3. You don't have to balance them; if they're too hard, they're not so hard they have no chance of escape.

If you want a good BBEG, a good thing to do is take a low-HD monster or outsider and give them 6 class levels. If you choose an especially human looking one, too, you can leave players wondering just what it is they're up against. (I rolled a villain who's a Janni with 6 levels in Bard. He could probably take down the entire party by himself, but prefers to let others do his bidding.)

For making your own capstone feats, a good rule of thumb is to make feats that advance certain class features by two levels, and allow them to be taken only once (I.E. extra sneak attack die, increased slow fall range, 2 levels of advancement for an animal companion, one extra wild shape per day, etc.), and make other capstones that allow single-classed characters to get access to their level 7 and 8 abilities. This way, a dual-classed character can advance both his classes after the cap (encouraging versatility), while a single-classed character gets access to abilities only that class can get (encouraging sticking with one class).

The character should generally have at least two levels in a class in order to qualify for capstone feats that advance class features.

The Fighter is a special case - his primary class feature (bonus feats) becomes irrelevant by the time they hit the cap. Therefore, the Fighter should gain access to feats that increase his Base Attack Bonus. In my rules, I have one feat that can increase BAB by +1 for any character proficient in all martial weapons, and another feat that increases BAB by another +1 for 6 level single-classed Fighters only. This means that only single-classed Fighters can gain access to BAB +8 feats.

[The Glyphstone]

There's ways around that. For humanoid bad guys, the can get extra feats too. For non-humanoids - outsiders, dragons, giants, the big nasty stuff, you can just ignore the 6HD limit, or let them stack 6 class levels on their racial HD.

[Calimehter]

There's ways around that. For humanoid bad guys, the can get extra feats too. For non-humanoids - outsiders, dragons, giants, the big nasty stuff, you can just ignore the 6HD limit, or let them stack 6 class levels on their racial HD.

Yeah, I probably should have mentioned "PHB races" when I made my first post. I had the blinders on a bit because my E6 campaign features mostly PHB races, so my "big" NPCs are powerful more because of where they are in society (i.e. resources and minions) than because of their actual personal power.

Using LA+ races at 6th level is another good way, though, if the setting permits it - and assuming the PCs aren't just playing the LA+ races themselves.

[Godskook]

This is a really popular houserule, but also a really exploitable one, and entirely unnecessary. Seriously, if you like this, just take Reserve Feats (Complete Mage / Complete Champion). They get what I'm pretty sure you're looking for, are more balanced, and many fit just fine in E6.

Huh? Which cantrip is exploitable under that houserule, outside of cure minor wounds? And I'm pretty sure DFA gets an at-will detect magic + identify invocation and detect magic can be permanencied, so an at-will detect magic doesn't seem too bad.

[Rixx]

Pathfinder has unlimited cantrips. It also replaces Cure Minor / Cause Minor with spells called "Stabilize" and "Bleed" which cause creatures to stop/resume dying. That'd be something to throw in.

[Shyftir]

Thank You all this is very informative. Please keep it coming.

I'm starting them at level 3 so that the first session can include a pack of feral house cats without everybody dying.


I've allowed unlimited cantrips before. Limiting them in combat situations only. I think that idea will definitely make it in.

I'm also considering fixed hp at each level, and a collapsed skill system.

Another change I'm considering is adopting the 4e death system. Obviously I'll replace the "healing surge" concept somehow.

I had already considered the LA+6 style option.

Also one idea I had is that things which are common level 10-14 type stuff would make fantastic MacGuffins to recover. Possibly fluffing a campaign world where something is preventing the older more powerful magic from happening?

[sonofzeal]

Thing is, there's a lot of cantrips/orisons out there in various books. Not nearly as many as there are 1st level spells, but still a lot, and many are still very useful. Naturewatch is one that I've had at-will before, and managed to exploit. Really though, it's just a question of design philosophy; lvl 0 spells were not generally designed with at-will in mind.

Reserve Feats, however, fit perfectly. They're designed and balanced with at-will in mind, they're often a little more powerful but a little less exploitable, and they're available as feats which E6 is awash in. Also, they don't require any houserulings. I see this as a solid win.

[Tyndmyr]

Really, there aren't many major, exploitable cantrips. Cure Minor Wound shouldn't restore HP under the infinite variant, and you might want to change Detect Magic to first-level. About all that's left of significance is Acid Splash, which isn't bad.

Sonic snap comes to mind. Specifically if I can tack metamagic on to said cantrips in any way. IE, fell drain. No-save level drain is pretty awesome in E6.

Mage hand is likewise useful infinitely. Not broken, but quite powerful.

[Calimehter]

@Shyfter - One way I added items with caster levels >6 in my E6 campaign was to create a feat called Boost Item Creation Level, which allowed a character who had all the other prerequisites for creating a certain item to create said item. I am being pretty restrictive with my version of the feat - requiring it be taken for each item crafted, and multiple times for each extra caster level needed - since I want the feat to be a plot hook moreso than a PC tool and I want such items to be very rare. However, if you want larger numbers of said cool items, you could easily ease or even eliminate those restrictions and still have a fairly balanced (IMO) feat.

@Tyndmyr - funny you should mention Fell Drain, as I was just thinking of incorporating it into my own E6 game for a BBEG type. Its about as close to broken as I've been able to make Spontaneous Metamagic from UA (so far) . . . lose 3 0-level spell slots for one casting of Ray of Frost plus a no-save negative level? Yes please!

[Viletta Vadim]

Sonic snap comes to mind. Specifically if I can tack metamagic on to said cantrips in any way. IE, fell drain. No-save level drain is pretty awesome in E6.

Mage hand is likewise useful infinitely. Not broken, but quite powerful.

Fell Drain Sonic Snap is a second-level spell, using a second-level spell slot, not a cantrip. Though Sonic Snap could cause the same mining issues as Acid Splash.

[Tyndmyr]

Fell Drain Sonic Snap is a second-level spell, using a second-level spell slot, not a cantrip. Though Sonic Snap could cause the same mining issues as Acid Splash.

Well, yes. If you didn't mitigate it with feats. It's E6. Why would you not mitigate it by burning feats?

[Shyftir]

I could simply add a "no metamagic" rule to the at-will cantrips. Gets rid of the majority of those exploits for one simple statement.

Also can someone drop me a link to reserve feats, I've not heard of that particular rule.

Also is there an online resource which describes all the effects of E6? I have a fairly solid grasp of the concept but if I could find where somebody else has already dealt with all the obvious results, I could avoid a lot of "reinventing the wheel."

[Godskook]

I could simply add a "no metamagic" rule to the at-will cantrips. Gets rid of the majority of those exploits for one simple statement.

Or just hit anyone with a book if they even attempt to add metamagic to them.

That's what I'd do.

Also can someone drop me a link to reserve feats, I've not heard of that particular rule.

They're mostly from Complete Arcane or Mage, iirc, and they're not a 'rule' so much as they're just plain feats.